The canal has obviously been replaced by a road and the bridge is no more, but these mundane alterations have more to do with town planning than cultural change. The Nieuwe Kirk remains standing, as it has done since the 1380s, but it is the disappearance in the modern photograph of the building under construction to the right of the kirk in Beyer’s painting that speaks most eloquently of the religious upheaval in Dutch history. The tower of the new kirk, that was started by the church authorities in 1646, was rudely interrupted by the ascendancy of the protestant city authority, who were furious that the spire of the building overshadowed their new town hall.
Work was halted in 1653 and the tower was eventually demolished in 1783. The foundations of the tower are all that remain of the iconoclasm.
...and in Amsterdam
Look at the differences between the modern-day perspective of Amsterdam’s Nieuw Voorburgwaal, and the 1759 depiction by Dutch artist Jan de Beyer (c.1703-85) to be offered for sale from the Anton Dressman collection at Christie’s Amsterdam on April 16 with an estimate of €45,000-75,000.
